Man guards Mauritanias rare Islamic books for their cultural significance

Chinguetti, Mauritania’s Medieval Fortress Town Struggles to Preserve Rare Books

In the northern Adrar region of Mauritania, a medieval fortress town known as Chinguetti is home to several rare book libraries. The town, once a center of commerce and Islamic learning between the 13th and 17th centuries, has seen a significant decline in recent years due to urbanization and climate change.

Muhammad Gholam el-Habot, a librarian at one of the few remaining book libraries, is responsible for caring for approximately 1,400 manuscripts. El-Habot’s family has been entrusted with this responsibility for generations, and he takes his role seriously. “These books are very important to my family and me,” he said.

The town’s climate change poses a significant threat to the preservation of these rare books. Andrew Bishop, a researcher at the University of Wyoming, notes that extreme heat and unpredictable rainfall patterns can cause damage to manuscripts. “Extreme heat and less predictable rainfall patterns means that texts are increasingly damaged by water or heat, making many manuscripts beyond repair,” he said.

Many residents have left Chinguetti in search of economic opportunities, leaving behind only a handful of families who continue to care for the town’s cultural heritage. El-Habot’s family is one of these few remaining families, and they take great pride in their role as custodians of the town’s rare books.

The el-Habot family library is just one of several libraries that once housed a vast collection of manuscripts. The scholars who created these works traveled extensively throughout the Muslim world between the 18th and 19th centuries, amassing a vast fortune of approximately 6,000 scripts on various topics, including Islamic jurisprudence, mathematics, and medicine.

The town’s mud libraries are not designed to withstand sudden rain or extreme temperatures, making preservation even more challenging. The area is also at risk of being buried by surrounding sand dunes in the long run, although a clear timeline for this event has yet to be determined.

Source: Al Jazeera